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What's that saying...you can never go home again? Well, despite what we may have experienced during the pandemic when livestreaming and Zooming allowed us to bend the known rules of time and space and, for example, be in more than one place at the same time, you can probably never fully go back in time again either. With this postponed/rescheduled/reconfigured run of West Coast Wilco shows kicking off almost exactly two years after the release of the band's most recent studio record, Ode To Joy, there has been some thought that Jeff and his bandmates would basically go back to the

Hahaha! The SBS revisionism has begun (or rather, is continuing)!

NovaCat lives! 🙌

For the second night in a row, Jeff walked onto the Brooklyn Made stage around 9 p.m., following a short opening set by a female singer-songwriter (although before anyone pings me, Wikipedia tells me Joanna Sternberg identifies as gender neutral and uses singular they/them pronouns), picked up one of his trusty Kel Kroydon acoustic guitars and launched into the same Bob Dylan cover with which he had opened the previous night's show. You could have been forgiven for having a case of déja vu except for the fact that Jeff had warned those of us in attendance on Night 1 of his intentio

Deep cuts, baby!

Parking this thread for now. Will write something after a bit of the shut eye. [Edit: Here goes nothing... As Jeff pointed out pretty early in his much-anticipated solo set that officially christened Brooklyn's newest live music venue, the intimate Brooklyn Made, he hadn't done this in quite some time. And depending on exactly how you define this, you could argue that it had been quite some time indeed. It's true that Jeff has performed solo acoustic as recently as July as part of a larger Tweedy band performance, and even did so a couple of times in 2020 (C

Has there ever been a great Wilco shed show? Or even a particularly memorable one? Asking for a friend... For the purposes of this brief discussion/show recap, I'm excluding the shows on the AmericanaRama tour in 2013 because those were a different animal. And I'm not counting iconic outdoor venues like Red Rocks Amphitheater because, well, those are also kind of a unique case. But I'm just talking about your standard, run-of-the-mill shed, whether owned by Live Nation or some other corporate entity or just a makeshift giant outdoor space set up in the parking lot of a hotel and c

But it also means yes in Russian...

With apologies to Bob Seger, who of course once sang about that old time rock 'n' roll soothing his soul, sometimes having good friends with you (not to mention a perfect spot to stand), an intimate venue (well, as intimate as a small baseball stadium can be), a good sound system (or at least a monitor pointed right at you) and pleasantly cool (but not at all cold) conditions doesn't hurt either. Such was the case for me personally tonight at the somewhat generically named Capital Credit Union Park on the outskirts of Green Bay, Wis., home of the much-less generically named Green B

Da.

Blatherings updated, fwiw. #TrampledByTyranny

On an otherwise bucolic late-summer evening in the heartland, it was a bit jarring to pull up to the entrance to Water Works Park tonight and see a small group of anti-vaccine protesters milling about. They were hardly menacing, and maybe this is a fairly common, ho-hum sight in town, but nevertheless it was a reminder to this visitor that the Covid-19 pandemic and the societal rifts it has caused are far from over and that we still have a long way to go to get back to so-called "normalcy" (if we ever will). In a nod to co-headlining band Trampled By Turtles, one protester held a simple sign t

I guess no one on here made it down to Chattanooga for this one, so we'll just note it for posterity with setlist lifted from Wilcoworld. Would have been nice to get a report from an attendee, though. Heard it was a pretty cool little fest and I saw some photos with drummer Eric Slick and possibly various other Dr. Dogs on stage with Wilco, I'm assuming during the show-closing California Stars. Here was the Wilco setlist, as played, according to Wilcoworld: A Shot In The Arm Random Name Generator At Least That's What You Said Love Is Everywhere (Beware)

It occurred to me that Candyfloss being on the printed setlist could theoretically have been a mistake since it literally is the next song in alphabetical order after California Stars. Is it possible that someone just made a little boo-boo on the drop-down menu of songs while printing out the setlist? It just seems a little out of nowhere for it to be on there to me, that's all...

There was a Facebook live discussion with John as well as the filmmaker way back when during lockdown that I watched, but I don’t know if it was archived anywhere or not.

Haha, “you owe me one!” Perfect. Oh, that Jeffria! Glad you got your song, dusty as it may have been after all this time in cold storage. How did you even contain yourself for the remainder of the show? Too bad no Candyfloss! That would’ve put things right over the top (and made me super jealous not to be there in person). Still, sounds like it was a lovely evening — apart from the aforementioned transgressions — and thanks for the excellent summation and details!

Wow, this might be an all-timer in the history of random VC posts! More than nine years later, we finally get some semblance of an explanation. I think Jeff is a lot kinder and gentler now, but…🤷‍♂️

There are few things more quintessentially Midwestern, probably, than a day and night spent at Summerfest in Milwaukee. I don't think I fully appreciated it the first few times I went, but where else can you get a combination of state fair, music festival and Oktoberfest, all contained within a lovely setting on the shores of Lake Michigan? When the weather is super nice, the bass is positively thumping and you've got a basket of fried cheese curds and dish of blue moon ice cream in your hands, well, let's just say that for some people, this is about as close as it gets to heaven.

Thank you kindly, sir! Animal invasions, or other distractions, are always welcome as recap fodder in my book.

Apologies, dear Tatlock! Been on a road trip and just saw your post. To answer your inquiries, I had totally forgotten that goth version of HMD (though I prefer to go more with Bauhaus than JD, but anyway)! This version is decidedly not like that at all. This one really is a The End-esque rendition, where Jeff starts speaking the lyrics like the Lizard King himself whilst the band fill in some downcast psychedelic sounds behind him. My only regret is they don't do the whole song that way, but rather then launch into the "regular" version — albeit with Glenn playing the natural intro rather tha

People always ask, but I honestly don’t keep a count. Not really a stats guy that way, plus what do you count — just full-band Wilco, or Jeff solo or Tweedy band or ? Anyway, maybe I’ll do it when I write the book!

Oh, I can relate!

Little frog in front of John. 🐸

After seeing Wilco wrap up several weeks of touring with Sleater-Kinney and Nnamdi with a big hometown show in Chicago on Saturday night, I have to admit it felt a little weird to be watching them close out a small festival in Columbus, Ohio, just 24 hours later. But such is life for a working band, I suppose: You go where the next gig is, regardless of any narratives or odd routings or other potential challenges. And of course there were bound to be some challenges, given everything that's happened this month as the band has returned to the road. In the Midwest in the summer, weat

Jeff played this song at least once on the Tweedy Show, and I dug it! I think he mentioned that Andy was just over for lunch on one of his visits to the Loft and they just decided to record this one with him playing clarinet. Glad it's getting a release of some sort.